Snow’s the Show

So this is snow.

Kids in this city where winter is an abstraction didn’t care Sunday that the city’s annual Holiday Street Festival had hundreds of craft and food booths, Santa Claus, and choirs, rock bands and jazz combos entertaining the 35,000-strong crowd. What mattered was snow.

Tons of it. White stuff blown via machine onto half a block of California Street early in the morning sat pristine and tempting, ready for throngs of small feet to stomp it down hard as cement and mitten-wearing hands to press it into projectiles to lob at friends.

Which they did. All day Sunday young snowball warriors displayed their battle scars--glowing red cheeks, scraped foreheads and damp clothes.

In its 24th year, the city’s Holiday Street Festival may have had snow for the first time, but longtime residents say the fair has always been a must for its variety of food, entertainment and crafts.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, the fair occupied six blocks of East Main Street, as well as three side streets and Mission Park.

“We come every year. It’s the best craft fair around,” said Sally Calle of Moorpark, who, with daughter Christie, 10, bought a hand-painted wooden snowman and other lawn decorations for their new home.

There was merchandise for every taste: ornaments, Christmas tree skirts, wreaths, Santa hats, blinking red reindeer noses, paintings, jewelry and refrigerator magnets.

Art students from Ventura High School modeled wearable art made from dryer ducts, wire, feathers and green cloth donated by a hospital ward.

Wayne Kelterer, 17, wore blue streamers on his arms, chicken wire and paper bags spray-painted silver. He said he was a carwash, a janitor or “some crazy tribal dancer.”

Ventura resident Diana Pizzuti and Mary Strapp both said they come to the festival yearly to get ideas for their own art projects.

“The creativity here is overflowing and that’s what we love,” Strapp said. “That, and the food.”

As visitors strolled by, the Cecil Rodgers Dance Studio performed, as did the Ventura High Jazz Band. Children made chalk drawings and pet owners put felt reindeer antlers on their dogs.

For kids, however, the snow stole the show. Hundreds of children pummeled each other with snowballs, while parents and less adventurous siblings watched from the straw bales on the sidelines.

Ken and Elizabeth Milbery of Ventura brought their sons, Brian, 3, and Sean, 5, mostly because the boys heard about the snow and asked to come.

Brian sat out while his brother gleefully messed it up with other youngsters.

“It’s too violent,” Elizabeth Milbery said, watching the hard-packed snowballs fly through the air. “The little ones are crazy.”